Professor Richard Stewart is recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars in environmental and administrative law. Prior to joining the faculty, Stewart served as Byrne Professor of Administrative Law at Harvard Law School and as a member of the faculty of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He has served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the US Department of Justice and chairman of the Environmental Defense Fund. Stewart directs the NYU Climate Finance Project, which addresses new legal and regulatory institutions and tools for international transfer of public and private investment resources to developing countries. The project has published a pioneering book on the subject and held workshops and training sessions at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate meeting. It is currently developing a proposal for a Global Climate Finance Registry to promote accountability and effectiveness in global climate finance. He recently published a major book on US nuclear waste law regulation and policy. Together with Michael Oppenheimer and Bryce Rudyk, Stewart also heads the Guarini Center’s research on “Alternative Structures for Climate Action,” which explores innovative institutional strategies for global climate protection that are complementary to, but also distinct from, the existing UN framework.

Mark has spent the last eight years assisting vulnerable developing countries advance their environmental and sustainable development priorities at the United Nations through his work with Islands First, a non-governmental organization he helped start in 2007. He has also served as a Senior Adviser to the last two Chairs of the Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of 39 countries at the UN. His most recent work has primarily focused on the international climate change negotiations and the security implications of climate change. Prior to becoming the Executive Director of Islands First, Mark was a Transatlantic Fellow with Ecological Institute in Berlin, where he conducted research on international governance of the Arctic in the context of a changing climate.

David Kanter is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies. His research examines the interconnected challenges of nitrogen pollution, food security and sustainable development, with a particular focus on: 1) the scientific, socioeconomic and legal dimensions of returning to a safe planetary boundary for nitrogen; and 2) balancing the multiple, and often competing objectives of sustainable agricultural intensification – from agricultural productivity to human wellbeing. David uses an interdisciplinary set of research methods to investigate these issues, from Earth Systems and economic time series modeling, to expert elicitation and legal analysis. Prior to this post, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Nat is a Vice President at Environmental Defense Fund, a leading nonprofit advocacy organization based in New York, with a focus on EDF’s climate change work across the organization’s programs. He returned to EDF from the White House, where he was Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment in the National Economic Council and Domestic Policy Council. In that capacity, he developed and coordinated Administration policy on a range of environmental and energy-related issues, both domestically and internationally.

From 2007 to 2010, he was Director of Economic Policy and Analysis and then Chief Economist, where he helped to shape the organization’s advocacy for market-based environmental policies across a range of program areas, including climate, air quality, energy, water, ecosystems and oceans. From 2001, he was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management. His research in environmental economics has appeared in prominent academic journals. He is the co-author of Markets and the Environment (Island Press, 2007), and co-editor of Economics of Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, 2009).

Michael OppenheimerVisiting Professor of Law
Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University
email: omichael@princeton.edu

Michael, a regular visiting professor, is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School and faculty associate of the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, Princeton Environmental Institute, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. In the spring term, he usually teaches the Global Environmental Law, Science and Governance seminar. The seminar has both NYU Law and Princeton students, and classes alternate between the campuses.

He is currently a coordinating lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report.

Bryce was the Executive Director at the Center from 2011 to 2014 and is currently the Climate Program Director. He is also an adjunct professor teaching International Environmental Law, International Environmental Law Clinic, and Global Environmental Governance. For 2014-2016, he is a Senior Legal Advisor to the Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the United Nations Climate Change Negotiations. AOSIS is the negotiating group of the 44 small island developing states around the world.

He has been at the Center since 2009, initially as a Research Fellow and then Director of the Climate Finance Project. His research focuses on the global institutional structure for climate finance and alternative transnational institutions for global climate action. He has an LLM in International Law from NYU Law, a JD from the University of Toronto, and a BSc in Biology from McMaster University. He practiced private international law and was a lobbyist for higher education before moving to international environmental law.

Karmjit is Senior Legal Advisor to the Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the United Nations Climate Change Negotiations. AOSIS is the negotiating group of the 44 small island developing states around the world.

He has worked with the Chair of AOSIS since 2012. Prior to that he worked as a sustainable development advisor to the Permanent Mission of Maldives to the UN where he was the lead technical expert on the Rio+20 negotiations. He holds an LL.M in International Law and Justice from Fordham University and a joint JD/MBA degree and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies degree from York University.

Oliver is an Undergraduate Research Assistant at the Guarini Center. He has provided research assistance at the center on several policy briefs, including The Rise of DG: Options for Addressing the Environmental Consequences of Increased Distributed Generation and the Building Demand for Efficient Buildings.

He recently completed a summer internship at White & Case, working with the Americas Disputes and Competition Practice Development group. He is seeking a career in litigation and has a significant research interest in energy and environmental regulatory/transactional law. He is a member of the Class of 2019 at NYU.

Sara is a Legal Fellow at the Guarini Center. Her research spans from urban environmental law and sustainability to global ocean governance and plastics. She received her B.S. in Environmental Science from UCLA and her J.D. from New York University School of Law.

While at UCLA, Sara was part of a team that endeavored to create a municipal carbon neutral scoping plan. In law school, she conducted research for the Institute for Policy Integrity and worked as a summer law clerk at the California Office of the Attorney General in the Lands, Environment, and Natural Resources Law sections. Sara was Managing Editor of the Environmental Law Journal while at NYU School of Law.

Danielle is the Executive Director at the Guarini Center where her research focuses on urban environmental law and sustainable energy policy. She is also an adjunct professor and is currently teaching a seminar in Urban Environmental Law & Policy with Katrina Wyman. Previously, she served as a research fellow in Climate Change and the Law at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Law where she studied interactions between international trade law and domestic environmental policy. While in Copenhagen, Danielle lectured in courses on international energy law, international environmental law, and the law of the World Trade Organization. Danielle has written widely on topics in environmental and energy law and policy including electricity regulation, biofuels policy, and building energy efficiency laws. Danielle received her J.D. from NYU and her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Born and raised in Canada, Katrina Wyman has a BA, MA, and LLB from the University of Toronto and an LLM from Yale Law School. Before joining NYU School of Law in 2002, she was a research fellow at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2001-02. Wyman’s research interests relate primarily to property and natural resources law and policy. She has undertaken case studies of the evolution of emissions trading, and property rights in fisheries and taxi licenses. She also has worked on the Endangered Species Act and the policy and legal responses to the possibility that climate change might prompt large-scale human migration. Wyman serves as the director of the Environmental LLM program at NYU Law.